Okay

I'll start my story with the ending...She's okay. But yesterday was an odd day!

Notice the two hospital bands. One for me, one for my 9-year-old daughter. I was rubber stamping with a friend when the school secretary called me. "We just want you to know your daughter has fallen." "Okay," I'm thinking to myself. "Just a warning so when she gets off the bus and has a cut lip or bump on her forehead, I'll already know what happened." "We've called 9-1-1." I think I said very calmly, "I'll be right there." The seven miles to her school has never seemed so long. I pulled into the school drive and saw a paramedic unit parked on the playfield. I was still in heels from my morning at the office. So as I wobbled my way through the muddy grass, I was very relieved to see her standing -- a friend was holding her up and a paramedic was hovering nearby. All her classmates were standing back and watching pretty closely. Turns out she had fallen off the monkey bars and landed on her back/tailbone. So, with a good fall like that, it's not unexpected for a school to call for emergency responders. She could walk and the paramedic wasn't worried but told me if she experienced any tingling in her arms or legs, we should call 9-1-1 again. As we headed for home, she complained that both hands were tingling. Off to the emergency room. Two hours later complete with her first round of x-rays, the diagnosis was that she was fine. "Give her ice packs (or frozen green beans in our case) and Tylenol," they said.

She went to school today. Has sworn to avoid the monkey bars for the rest of her life. And I have another story for the scrapbook. (I confess I snapped a quick picture of her in the ER while waiting for the doctor.)